Continuous Partial Attention Wiki

I’m not 100% certain whether or not Linda Stone coined the term “Continuous Partial Attention” but she has certainly been shedding light on the cause and probable effects of this growing trend. The Continuous Partial Attention Wiki is an interesting resource if you want to learn more about what is sure to impact any of us who have to work in the brave new always connected world…

Micro-sized cars

I’ve only seen these in Canada, although I’m sure they must be sold in the Unites States as well. I can only imagine that they would end up being used as chocks for those ridiculous extravagances that we call SUVs if they ever showed up here in the South.
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They seem awfully small, apparently seating two adults and not much else.

Best worst song you’ll see in a long time

Update (May 28, 2011) – The video is gone from College Humor, but it *is* on YouTube. So I’ve embedded it here.

The song is “What’s it Gonna Be” and it’s still a good laugh but definitely NSFW and probably would be considered vulgar by those with sensitive dispositions. To those folks I say, skip this and / or get help.

Update (August 6, 2006): this video is by Mike O’Connell.

This posting on Collegehumor.com is like a car accident. You know you don’t want to look but you can’t resist at the same time. Not safe for work but worth a look.

Is this where my FEMA tax dollars are going?

I just received this in the mail and I can’t decide if it’s some insurance companies pretending to be represented by FEMA or if FEMA is shilling for the insurance companies. I didn’t really think it was the job of our esteemed government agencies to arbitrarily recommend insurance companies to us.

Regulate, maybe. Rate, perhaps. But, in spite of the disclaimer (last image below), this seems like outright endorsement to me.

What do you think?

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Envelope from FEMA

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First part of message on over-long paper

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Second part of message with David Maurstad’s signature on it

Relative sizes of our planets and various stars

[Update 2009 12 22 – It was just pointed out to me that the domain under which this is hosted belongs to an idiot. While I have my own views about the amount of attention and assistance the Jewish people get from our media and government, the owner of this website is completely over the top.

This does not take away from the scientific relevance of this astronomy page. End Update]

For some great pictures showing the relative sizes of our solar system’s planets as well as some contrasting the size of our sun with that of other stars out there, click here.

Advertisements in Podcasts

As podcasting begins to mature, it is only natural that some folks will work to profit from it. I think, for the near future, the vast majority of podcasts will remain free. But for those that move into the commercial realm, they face the daunting task of finding a monetization model that will be acceptable to users who have absolute control over their listening (and viewing, for videocasts) devices.

Some profit models will simply be that you need to pay to subscribe and be done with it. This is challenging as, with so much content available out there for free, there will have to be very compelling content for folks to pay for it up front like that.

The most probable model will fall back to advertising. The targetted demographics of podcasting are astounding. An audience that has actually made the effort go seek out particular content, download it and then listen to it. TV of old with its “elephant gun” approach to advertising (we have x million folks watching our (one of three competing) station, they’re loosely in this demographic so hopefully we can convince advertisers to sell stuff with us), was somewhat successful and it was the best model available for a long time.

I was watching “Star Trek” (the ancient series) on G4 a couple of nights ago and was pretty amazed how tightly focused the advertising was.

But the thing I have been finding with the podcast advertising is that they haven’t clued in yet that the advertisements need to be as entertaining as the content. Listening to a daily show with the exact same ad every day will have you skipping the ad in no time flat. As with radio and TV, especially with TIVO, if the ads are not engaging they will not be viewed. Even if folks do not outright skip the ads with a flip of the finger – there is legislative and technological bumbling to try to prevent such making its way through their courses now – in this era of “continuous limited attention” folks will simply tune out the drivel and focus on their laptop, their blackberry, that other channel, that magazine in front of them. In short, you can no longer force folks to pay attention to content that they don’t wish to.

With more entertainment and diversions available to us than ever before in the history of this planet, people are not going to waste their time with what does not appeal to them.